WE'RE BACK for 2011

GA/GI is hosting the first Think Tank meeting for 2011 this upcoming week at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts! We'll keep you posted on plans for second year on our new blog at a site soon to be announced!

The Good, The Bad, The GA/GI!

Photo shown: GA/GI Archives

GA/GI boasted no shortage of photographers, many who are just now rolling film from their cameras. We feel truly blessed on this score. Some took advantage of our "Live! Laugh! and Upload" system created by Deeplocal to send images as they happened. Others caught images on the fly from one venue to the next trying to find food that was quickly being devoured; swarms of students like Adam Keene from Mpowered at Duquesne University, hung in for our belated but astonishing fashion show; he met us at the end of the evening nodding and patting his back pack. In our last post, You met Spike from VivoLive, who experimented with an awesome live stream of GA/GI Activities, the busy battery going out moments before our first model hit the runway. GA/GI Fest was a-whirl with showcases, show stoppers, first-year surprises and happy paparazzi snapping away. It is these images that will best tell our story, and some of the most compelling photographs of the Geek Art/ Green Innovator's event have been captured by Heather Mull. A photographer of considerable talent, Mull shot the March 31st City Paper cover featuring Bill O'Driscoll's GA/GI Festival story. And recently through artist Randie Snow (who's work is still on exhibit at Voluto Coffee), we discovered Mull's images in the blog "Keystone Edge." They are amazingly beautiful! Mull captured some of our finest festival moments, so while we work to put together our comprehensive Media Review, this retrospective of some of the evening's delights, is a feast that will surely curb any post event anticipation! Click the link below view and enjoy.

http://www.keystoneedge.com/features/geekartgreeninnovatorsfest0408.aspx

THANKS ALL!!! GA/GI Sweeps the Media and Steals Your Hearts!

GA/GI made PA history and cemented Penn Avenue as a Pittsburgh arts icon thanks to the thousands of you who attended! We have tons of media footage to filter through, art to return, hand shaking to do with our sponsors and partners and post meetings to plan. But we will soon be letting you see how it all played out and will showcase our best GA/GI videos and images soon! Please accept our heartfelt gratitude for your participation in this amazing event and keep watching our blog for updates! In the meantime... Do you have comments or images you'd like to share for our GA/GI Media Review... ideas for GA/GI 2011? Please e-mail us: gagifest@gmail.com

A special thanks to Dave Edwards and Art Energy Design for the generous use of the "Power Flower" brand!

Can't Be THERE? Watch GA/GI on VIvoLIVE!

Spike Katora director of Product Development @ Vivo Live caught us between bouts of festival madness and offered to broadcast us Live! Looks like another festival first as we live-stream our activities during Unblurred on Penn from 5 to ?

Katora began his company a year ago when his aunt was getting married. Her husband-to-be parent's couldn't make the wedding, so Spike sprung into action creating a live stream and making it happen with one computer and one camera! One year and one "Innovation Works" grant later , and he's taking on GA/GI, excited about the cool people and projects we've pulled together for the evening. He'll be roaming our 4 clusters with one small camera and only a back pack for back up!

It going to be one grand experiment within our experiment, and we'll all be holding our collective breaths for the moment we go LIVE!

CLICK HERE APX 1700

Watch GA/GI LIVE! Tonight!

http://vivolive.com/gagifestival/gagilive

Commercial Break....

Geek Arts/Green Innovators (GA/GI) Spot from Kris Mortensen on Vimeo.

What's LIVE @ GA/GI

A sampling of performances! Dilworth School World Beat Drummers, Life In Balance, and Cello Fury (Formerly Cellofourte)



World Beat Drummers performing @ GA/GI Day 10 am to Noon @ Union Project 801 N. Negley Avenue in Highland Park for the first segment...
Then for GA/GI Night 5-11 pm @ 4800-6100 Penn Avenue...Life In Balance. Cello Fury, (also shown in video). Also The Rusty Nails Bag Piper---Brett Boye, DJ Stevey B. of iParty; then to round out the evening---DJ James Gyre @ our 9:30 pm fashion show "Pedal to the Metal!"
Also $7 for a special 7 pm performance "Tap into the Possibilities" @ the Dance Alloy Theater!

Banner Week on Penn Avenue!

Pick up Penn--a community clean-up campaign--organized by Festival Associate and FDA Intern, Meaghan Maher; valiantly executed by Matt Galluzzo, Art District Manager and Jason Sauer of Most Wanted Fine Art with a crew of eager volunteers, topped off a banner week on Penn Avenue! The Penn Avenue Arts Initiative put some steam behind the festival all last week hosting City Paper and On Q for interviews with FDA Staff and Festival Partners; then Sunday, Rust Belt Radio caught us to get some words in about the upcoming event. Listen and watch for everything to come out this week in the media as we start the countdown to GA/GI!

Shown here, Ryder Henry, a local artist working on one of our GA/GI banners. They are recycled discards from the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Thanks Paula Weiner! Also thanks to Nancy Schuster and Mable Bozeman and family for their participation. And a ^5 to Bob Ziller, who let us use his space and Warholesque poppy patterns to get this task done and done beautifully! Colors from Westmoreland Paint in the Strip District. Also Shown, Mega Photographer Heather Mull, shooting @ the Pittsburgh Glass Center for City Paper.

Coucilman Bill Peduto has gone GA/GI! Join Us This Saturday, March 27 for Pedutube!

We weren't shy when Councilman Bill Peduto asked us if there was "any way to assist" the Geek Art and Green Innovators Festival. As anyone can imagine, mounting a first-ever-festival is no joke, so we've been looking for pledges and partnering the way all business is currently done in America, making a connection with Bill Peduto--on Facebook! Councilman Bill tells us he's "backed more green legislation than any other member of city council." We're delighted that he's signed on to help raise funds for the city's first eco, art and technology festival--GA/GI!

Via "Pedutube," Bill has helped raise nearly $10,000 for local organizations and promoted their causes to new audiences in a fun and unique way. We discovered that two of our GA/GI partners--the Union Project and Friends of the Urban Forest--have been part of this wonderful program!

Here's how it works: Join us on Saturday, March 27th at Cappy's on Walnut Street in Shadyside at 10 pm with special guest DJ Muddy! Or if you can't make it, you can still be a part of PeduTube by using this form (click here) and requesting a YouTube video for a $5 donation... Or be a sponsor of GA/GI by pledging a nickel, dime or quarter for every dollar we raise. Thanks for your support....and we'll see you there for fun, laughs, friends and more GA/GI 411!

GA/GI Gets Posters, Wallpapers and Hula Hoopers

We can hardly wait to open an e-mail from Pierce Marrato @ Touchfaster! He's been designing many of our wonderful marketing materials for GA/GI including a poster now in progress. We've also had the assistance of another incredible designer, Debbie Holt from Unique Picturap (no "e" no "w"). Debbie creates wonderful papers with business logos and family pictures. (She'll put your grandmother on paper and make her a rock star!) Debbie's work will be the main signage in and around the Glass Lofts and along the Avenue.

And let's hear it for hoops! Hoop Union from the Union Project will be hooping it up at the intersection of N. Pacific and Penn Avenue around 5:00-7:00 pm; showing us how to get our bodies moving for spring with exercise that's fun and healthy for the whole family! They'll showcasing the most beautiful display of hula hoops we've ever seen!

How Many Universities Does it Take to Make A Festival?

....So we started counting...a bevy of dancers from Point Park, Dj's and artists from Indiana State University; an intern and an entire Mobile Science Laboratory on wheels from the University of Pittsburgh, A professor/jewelry maker and a city planning doctorate from Penn State; a professor of a print shop and his top students from Edinboro University, volunteers from Chatham University; entertainment, robotics specialists from Carnegie Mellon University and a film crew from Duquesne University with others still coming in.....Thanks to all of you for your support! We'll keep the column running...

GA/GI: Homegrown and You'll Love the Flavor!

The 4800-5500 blocks of Penn Avenue are about to play host to Pittsburgh's First Art and Technology Festival! So what's an emerging urban neighborhood to do? We're planning to spruce it all up! Community and fans of the festival will come together for a neighborhood "Pick-up Penn!" We'll get rid of the bulk of debris left on the streets from Pittsburgh's recent "snowmageddon." Then on March 27 and 28, over 100 artists have vowed to take on a public art project that (if you don't already know) will be a huge and beautiful surprise!

Glaceau is a vitamin water company so cool, as they "remodel" their online look, they are using Facebook* as their homepage.

"Don't be alarmed!" the first line greets you when you get there! (With us, quite the opposite occurred.) Any company with enough self esteem to not sweat a few changes in their marketing plan, but in fact anticipate possible reaction of surprise, is our kind of sponsor! Glaceau, sporting a whole look and several awesome new flavors, will be keeping us hydrated through a number of events leading up to, during and after the Geek Art/Green Innovators Festival. Pop into one of our information sites to pick up a samples on April 2: the Pittsburgh Glass Center @ 5472 Penn Avenue; The Glass Lofts @ 5491 Penn Avenue or ou Eco-Tech Info Center @ 113 N. Pacific Avenue. Welcome GLACEAU Vitamin Water to Team GA/GI!

*To view the Vitamin Water site under "construction click here, for FB page click here.

Birds, Trees and Robots for the Little Ones @ GA/GI DAY

Did you notice that the GA/GI Fest is at two special times? That's just so we can give children K-5 their own special Geek Art/Green Innovators event in the morning before "Unblurred" on Penn. We call it GA/GI Day! The Union Project at 801 N. Negley in Highland Park will play host to a variety of kid-friendly activities from 10 am to noon; starting with a performance of the World Beat Drummers from Dilworth Elementary School followed by creative movement by Dance Alloy's Ayisha Morgan-Lee; then visit with David Edward's Power Flower, Replay My Play designer Sibel Deren ; hear puppeteer Flora Shepherd read "The Lorax" by Dr. Suess, plus enjoy a healthy snack with drinks provided by our new sponsor Turner Dairy Farm. Turner Dairy Farm will also be part of our Twilight F armer's Market @ GA/GA Night starting at 5 pm at Grow Pittsburgh 5429 Penn Avenue.

Birds, Trees and Robots graphics by Pierce Marrato @ Touchfaster

GA/GI In the Making: Alberto's Island Vessel

Look what Team GA/GI member Alberto Almarza has been up to...He's collaborating with artists at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. See his plans, his art, and hopefully--this finished project!